Deciding on how and when to start chores for kids can be tricky. You want to find age-appropriate chore ideas and be involved in the teaching of how to do things properly. You may have been hesitant because you have realized that initially it’s going to be more work and might create a battle. Be hesitant no more. I am giving you the one and one chore idea for kids that makes things manageable for you and your children. It’s a great way to introduce the idea of helping around the house and teaches your kids the important notion of positively contributing to the family and learning about responsibility.
Before I jump in with my one and one concept, I want to give you some general ideas for starting chores with your kids. I’m sure you have more great suggestions you could add, and I’d love to hear about what works in your home. Part of my heart in blogging is to equip parents by handing over the ideas that work for us. I often have learned or observed great parenting techniques and adopt ideas that I know I can incorporate into my family. Here I can pass them along to you.
Tips for Starting Out with Chores
- When starting out, it is great to create buy-in to the concept. You want kids to understand the heart behind working as a team to fulfill all of the needs and responsibilities of a household. This conversation will look different depending upon the age of your kids. You could brainstorm a list of things that do need to be done around the house and yard so they understand the scope. Talking about the benefits of hard work, serving others and contribution is also important.
- Deciding whether chores are paid or unpaid is a conversation to have with your spouse and your kids. Here is my take.
- Creating interactive chore charts often motivates kids.
- Make a chore ring for kids who want to take initiative in helping out.
- Utilize these 10 ideas to make clean-up fun for kids. This is a way to motivate and sometimes even trick them into helping.
- Make sure you have the right tools. I prefer to have more natural cleaners. I let them use natural cleaning wipes for surfaces like the front of the cabinets or the baseboards. They love little hand-held dusters. I also want to introduce you to the Hoover 2-in-1 Cordless Stick Vacuum, which has made it easier for my kids to do their chores.
Benefits of the Hoover 2-in-1 Cordless Stick Vacuum
- No Chord!!! – Having no chord makes it easier for kids (and parents) to move around the house with ease. With my chorded vacuum I was always lifting, shifting and re-plugging. The time that is cut and the fact that kids don’t have to mess with a tricky chord makes it ideal.
- 2-in-1 – This vacuum is not only an upright stick vacuum, but it also has a handheld that removes from the base. My kids can grab it to clean-up after their messes, clean out drawers or help remove crumbs from the car.
- Interchangeable Battery System – My kids could care less about this, but you will probably appreciate that this interchangeable battery system, which makes it so you can work with the 4 products in the Hoover cordless line, including their hard floor cleaner that has a wet and dry mode, which is officially on my Christmas wish list.
- Battery Life – These LithiumLife batteries have double the capacity of the standard 18-volt lithium Ion batteries, which means longer runtime and fade-free power. The battery also comes with a 2 year limited battery warranty.
- Lighter-Weight and Versatility – A stick vacuum tends to be lighter weight and easier for kids to manipulate. It also works on a variety of surfaces.
- Windtunnel 3 Technology – Again, this is for your knowledge only. The kids will only know they like it because it has such a greater suction power to help easily lift up the dirt and mess, making it a cleaning process with less effort.
- It’s Fun – Kids feel like a big deal working a vacuum. It makes noise. It’s electronic, and they love to move and push thins around. Vacuuming is often the desired job in our home. Since we got this vacuum, my four year old is vacuuming daily. It’s been hard to get him to stop.
The One and One Chore Idea for Kids
Now that we have established some foundation I want to give you a simple idea to introduce your children to the concept of chores and helping around the house. This is the one and one chore idea. The thought behind this is that we don’t want to overwhelm our kids or our ourselves with taking on a bunch of chores at once. We want to ease them into the idea, providing achievable goals. More responsibility will be introduced as they age. This idea is for families just entering into the world of chores.
The idea is that each child will have one chore to do daily and one chore to do weekly. A daily chore might be to have one of my kids in charge of keeping the shoe cubbies in the front hall neat and tidy for an entire week. Other ideas might include vacuuming under the dining table area, emptying the dishwasher, wiping the bathroom sink area down daily or making sure the garbages are taken out when full. The second component is giving children one weekly job. Weekly jobs might include dusting, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, weeding a portion of the flower beds, or vacuuming out the car. I’m sure you can think of many more chores that need to be done either daily or weekly.
I hope the ideas here inspire you to take the steps needed to get kids involved in the daily and weekly responsibilities around the house. It’s good for them. It’s good for you. The whole family can discover how to work together to accomplish more and therefore have more time playing together.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
I love the idea of kids helping with the cleaning. A vacuum is a relatively safe tool to give to kids to operate, and hey – who knows, maybe they will continue doing it when they grow up 🙂
Totally! The kids really love it too. Thanks for commenting.
What are the natural cleaners that you let the kids use? Wipes and spray?
Sometimes they are just using water for dusting. If they are using wipe product, I have used Green Works and Seventh Generation, with a preference for Green Works. I have also used their sprays or Bright Green, purchased at Safeway. I hope that helps.